Sam's Truth
by Michelle Birkby
Summary: What sam said during the Za'Tarc testing in divide and conquer


Author's notes This is told from Janet's point of view.  
  
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"Because I care for her." Jack finally admitted, his voice so soft I could barely hear him. "A lot more than I'm supposed to."  
  
I couldn't see Sam's face from where I sat, but I could see the way Jack looked at her, for just a second, his eyes pleading, for what I don't know. Forgiveness, understanding... reciprocation?  
  
"You are not a Za'tarc." Anise announced, breaking the spell that had hung between Sam and Jack in that moment. Jack breathed deeply.  
  
"Now test me." Sam said, harshly, grimly. I think she hated Anise right at that moment, hated her for forcing Jack to reveal feelings both would rather have kept hidden. She sat down, not looking at Jack, staring into Anise's machine with a remote, severe stare. Jack stood behind Anise, slightly to one side, so I could see his face.  
  
He looked so vulnerable. I've seen him in all kinds of situations, face all kind of dangers, and never have I seen him so anxious, so powerless, and so intense. He didn't even look up at Teal'c and I. I think he'd forgotten we were there. His entire world had shrunk to this tiny room, and the two woman in it, one holding secrets that could change his life, the other forcing them into the open.  
  
"I'm ready." Sam announced, coldly, clinically. I held my breath. Even I didn't know what she would say. I'd know her so long, shared so much, but I'd never got to the truth of what really went in her mind, what emotions she really felt about Jack. I'd wanted to know, but I didn't want to find out like this. It felt like an intrusion, the questions forcing their way into my friends carefully guarded mind, digging out answers she never wanted spoken.  
  
"Tell me what happened when you woke up." Anise asked.  
  
"I looked over to the other side of the barrier, and I could see the Colonel lying on the floor. His armband had fallen off. So had mine."  
  
I'd never heard Sam's voice so cold and biting, never seen her face so hard and set. It chilled me for a second, seeing a side of her I'd never seen, this remote, brutal side of her.  
  
Then I looked over at Jack, and I realised something else that startled me. For that first time ever, ever since I'd known him, he was completely still. The man who couldn't stand anywhere for five minutes without shuffling, whom I constantly had to tell off for fiddling with things he shouldn't touch, stood as if frozen, not moving a muscle, hands rammed into his pockets, staring intently at Sam's face. He was as frozen as I was. He knew as little as I did about Sam's feelings. And whatever she said now, would change his world forever.  
  
"And then." Anise prompted.  
  
"And then, " Sam continued slowly, "I called to the Colonel. He woke up, and made a joke about snacks."   
  
The words came slower and slower as she went on, as if she was having to force them out of her mouth.   
  
"I realised the C4 was about to blow. The Colonel wouldn't...the Colonel tried to hit the force wall. I told him to leave. He refused."  
  
Her voice cracked, the first sign of emotion I'd seen from her since she sat in the chair. An expression, of empathy, maybe even pity, flitted across Jack's face, so quickly I barely caught it.  
  
"The Colonel tried to...I'm not sure what he was doing. He ripped a panel off the wall, and poked around inside, but it didn't help."  
  
Her breath came faster, and shallow, as she relived that moment, watching him trying to rescue her, knowing there wasn't enough time, knowing he would die in the attempt, knowing he would die for her.  
  
"I asked him to leave again." Sam said, her eyes dark with memories.  
  
"Asked?" Anise queried, as the faintest thread of red flickered through the circle. Sam's eyes met Jack's for one brief second.  
  
"Begged." She said, calmly. "I begged him to leave."  
  
"But he wouldn't."   
  
"You know that." Sam insisted, stirring uncomfortably in her chair.  
  
"You have to tell me everything." Anise also insisted. "Feelings too."  
  
"Why?" Sam retorted, suddenly angry, wary of revealing too much. "Why do you have to know all this? Why do have to know everything we felt, and thought?"  
  
"Your feelings may have been created by a Gou'ald. They must be tested as severely as your memories. I do need to know. I understand it is intrusive, and I am sorry." Anise said, and I think she was sorry. She must have been aware of the tension in the room, the forced situation she'd created, the reluctant revelations that were being spoken. "Please," she said gently, "what happened next?"  
  
"I heard the Jaffa."  
  
Sam stopped. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She couldn't overcome the barrier she'd created, the self-protective ring of detachment she'd thrown up around herself so many years ago, when her mother died, and that she'd hidden behind ever since.  
  
"What did you feel when you heard the Jaffa?" Anise insisted.  
  
"Like a woman who was about to die." Sam said impassively, echoing Jack's words. Anise looked down at the circle.  
  
"Major Carter." She prompted.  
  
"What more do you need!" Sam snapped.  
  
"Sam." Jack said, warningly, glancing down at the circle rimmed by red. "Sam, I'm sorry to have to ask you, but please, tell her." He told her gently. She looked at him, her eyes pleading silently, helplessly.  
  
"I can't." she whispered, softly.   
  
"Would it be easier if I left?" he asked, his voice so gentle it almost broke my heart. It would have been hell for him to leave, to contemplate not hearing what she had to say, but if that was what she needed, that was what he would do.  
  
"No." she said, almost silently. "Stay."  
  
She swallowed, calming down a little, and continued.  
  
"You asked how I felt when I heard the Jaffa. I felt afraid, not so much for myself, but for him. For Colonel O'Neill. I knew he wouldn't leave any of his team behind, it was his golden rule, but I didn't want him to stay. I didn't want him to die. Not for me, not for any reason." Her voice thickened with tears as she remembered, but her military training kept her eyes dry.  
  
"He should have left." Sam said, her voice fading. She wasn't with us any more. She was in that corridor, preparing to die, facing a truth she'd always known but never accepted.  
  
"He should have, but he didn't." Anise prompted.  
  
"No." Sam said softly, so softly I strained to hear her. "He went crazy instead, beating on the force wall, trying to knock it down although he knew it was useless. I asked him to go again, and he screamed out 'No!' and I then I knew...I knew."  
  
"What did you know?"  
  
"I knew he wasn't leaving because he loved me."  
  
Silence. I knew, as no-one else did, how much that one simple statement cost her. Years of self-deception, of hiding, of deliberately ignoring the look in his eyes, the smile on his face, swept away in that second. For just a breath, time stood still for us all. I looked at Jack. He was gazing intensely at Sam, hardly daring to even draw breath.  
  
"And you?" Anise asked.  
  
"And I" Sam replied, drawing a deep breath. "I was stunned. I knew he cared...I didn't know how much. I didn't think I could be loved like that."  
  
"What else?"  
  
"I was even more desperate for him to leave."  
  
"Why?"   
  
"I wanted him to live. I didn't mind dying, as long as he lived."  
  
Jack breathed in sharply. I thought I saw his mouth form her name, but he didn't speak beyond that gasp.  
  
"Why?" Anise insisted again.  
  
"Because as much as I try not to, I care for him as much as he cares for me."  
  
"You love him?"  
  
The question snapped Sam out of her reverie. She moved her gaze away from the machine, away from Jack, and stared straight at Anise, the woman who had bought her to this, had forced her to tell secrets she never would have told, had forced her to finally face the truth about her self.  
  
"Do I love him?" Sam said simply. "Yes."  
  
Jack didn't move. I don't think he dared to, in case he shattered this one, perfect moment.  
  
"Do you have enough proof now?" Sam asked, calmly, coldly, the perfect military soldier again.  
  
"Yes." Anise admitted. "You are also not a Za'tarc."  
  
"Thank you." Sam said, frostily. I got up and left, Teal'c following, running round from the observation room to the one below. When I got there, Sam and Jack were talking quietly, and in the rush of events, I didn't get a chance to ask her what they had said to each other until much, much later.  
  
"So, tell me, what did you say?" I asked her, months later, as we prepared for a night of popcorn, wine and chocolates.  
  
"We agreed that none of what was said left that room." She said quietly.   
  
I couldn't believe it. All those feelings, long repressed desires and wants and needs finally laid bare, and she'd locked it away, in that tiny room, just like she'd always locked away that love between her and Jack.  
  
"And Jack's okay with that?" I asked, incredulous.  
  
"Of course. It's not as if anything can happen. There are rules and regulations and..."  
  
"Sam, you can't just hide from yourself for the rest of your life, you have to.."  
  
"Janet, please." She asked. "None of it leaves that room...ever. Don't you see, " she said gently, looking away from me, "it's the only way we can go on together, day after day, side by side, by never letting it into our minds for a second."  
  
The End 


End file.
